This letter is addressed to Russell's teacher. She came to the meeting and read a prepared statement on behalf of herself and the other teachers that basically said all the stuff that had gone wrong this year was my fault. At any rate, the new school seemed much more proactive about providing for his needs, so fuck 'em.

Dear Russell's Teacher:

This is a personal response to your read statement in the IEP because frankly, I felt very disappointed, saddened and somewhat betrayed by it.


I have asked repeatedly for Russell to simply be shown the mechanics of just writing down the assignments and being cued to do so. Russell is the kind of person that if you show him how to fish, he'll figure out how to fish. He may need to be reminded how to fish again from time to time because of his ADHD, but generally, he's pretty smart, so it doesn't take much -- some kind of behavior contract might have been workable. We could have enrolled his other two teachers in participating in it and I would have been happy to provide any rewards/consequences. He seems to struggle with getting to his classes, getting settled, getting out his materials, etc.

Habits with him take time and cueing, but then he gets into the groove and he gets it down. He needed help in these areas and did not get it for the most part. For example, any more, I just have to mention that I can sit on the toilet in the bathroom while he showers if he needs to be reminded how to clean his body, and he comes out of the bathroom with his body appropriately washed. I know he can wash himself appropriately, but that he forgets and thinks it will slide. I don't let it slide and I send him back to wash his hair, get his armpits, or wash his face.


I sincerely felt that all three of his teachers missed a huge opportunity to make a big difference in his life, by not teaching him exactly how and when to write down his assignments and how to organize his time to do so, i.e., he never learned how to fish from his teachers. The resource teacher was not particularly good at it either, though, I'd asked for that, his solution was simply to check to see if Russell had his assignments. Russell was asked to write them down, which he did sporadically, but he struggled with that aspect of things, so he never learned that skill, either. And it was not something I could teach him because I wasn't there. I could give him suggestions, playact with him as to how to ask his teachers for what he needed, and so forth, but I could not be there to cue him, to encourage him, or remind him, nor did I have the interaction I needed with all three teachers to know what was going on.


I was trying to help with homenotes. Being that I was not at school to be able to show him how to write down his assignments and check back in 5 minutes to see if he'd done it for a week or so for each class, I was kind of stuck doing homenotes, which as you noted, was not an effective or empowering way to do things for Russell. I am disappointed that in addition to having to learn how to deal with a new school, a new environment, and new teachers, next year, that he will also have to learn how to organize himself through it. Fortunately, they seem very interested in teaching him those skills and empowering him to do them himself, so my hope he'll get the support he needs to figure it out. I was also disappointed that you didn't talk to me more directly to offer solutions to these issues earlier in the year when we could have a made a difference about it. I sincerely thought that you felt comfortable just telling me what you thought.


When you read that statement, I felt like you all blamed me for Russell's lack of success. I also felt that informing me of that two weeks before school lets out seemed like a blind swipe at me, rather than anything productive, nor did it offer many solutions to Russell's issues. Swimming during the year would be great -- only he hasn't had much time to do anything outside of school. He'll be swimming this summer at Wild Island and he's been going to yoga on a weekly basis for nearly three months and is making enormous strides, as he practices some pretty complex and difficult yoga moves at home and is stronger and more flexible than most folks I know. Yoga exercises only take 5-10 minutes a pop. He's learning yoga that Tai Chi is based on and is thrilled to be gaining martial arts knowledge.


Finally, I know I have made mistakes in this. I have not been clear how to reduce his work load and still have his academics count and I do not think we set that up to work well. I did not think that Mr. J passing him along was appropriate, but I don't think that we actually solved it, we just told him to stop it. It would have been nice to know that I could have signed off partially complete assignments with Mr. J, but he seemed reticent to work with me, too. I could secondguess myself, but I am not sure what would have worked with him, but I view it as a mistake, too. I probably shouldn't have put you in the middle of that one, but I had tried to talk to Mr. J with little success and I don't know a lot about how to make reduce assignments work for Russell, nor did I think that it was explained well.


Additionally, I am still learning how to do this stuff and certainly when it's my son, it is harder to be objective. I find when it's someone else's kid I always have the right answer and the appropriate response, but that with my kid that's a lot harder. I also feel that I cannot make much impact at school other than to be willing to work with my kids' teachers as best as I can. I felt sure you understood that I was willing to work with you, but apparently, you did not.

I'm sorry for that. I had tried hard to communicate that with you and thought that you felt you could tell me whatever was on your mind, particularly because you were using your personal email with me and were thus, not being monitored by the school. You had also put me in your confidence about some personal information regarding your job, i.e., the crap with the principal, and I'd thought we were friends enough for you to be forthright with me. I would have been happy to work with any solution you proposed because I was clearly out of good ideas and I was often ill enough not to be thinking that clearly about it. I was often just trying to stay afloat myself.


Mostly, I'm really sad for what Russell didn't get out of this year in school and for how much quality time we have missed with him as a result. Tonight, he spent an hour and a half working on his oral report for Social Studies. Then he ran through the park with his dad. You'd have thought he got to go to heaven. Then his dad just wrote an email signing him off from missing work. He's been working his tail off and achievement jumps like he showed on the WJ-R are evidence enough that he's learning and moving forward academically, so we don't care about his missing work at this point. I'd just like him to have some fun. I'm not telling him that, but that's how I feel.


I hope that that kind of documentable progress on his part, helps you get what you need to not get crap from the principal, and will help you with your national board work. Additionally, I hope we get to talk this through at some point.


This summer's goal for Russell: getting him in the habit of using deodorant on a consistent basis.

__

Today, Mike was gone all day, so I made breakfast, got it mostly cleaned up, and washed and sold 7 dozen eggs. The chickens must be shooting eggs out their butts, I tell ya because that was just the last three days.

I weeded a little, remembered nearly dead plants bought last week and then got the kids' hair cut. I met Mike in town, we went to Jimboy's tacos to eat, and then hit Home Depot, where we bought really spiffy lounge chairs and a buttload of plants. The kids had more fun playing with blankets, sweatshirts, and the like on the chairs, even long after Mike and I had abandoned them to get chores done.

Genny's exhausted into next week, so we're putting her to bed. I planted my basil in the big omigosh terra cotta planter out front and watched the sun slide behind the mountains.

I've got windburn on my cheeks from sitting so long out to watch the sunset.

Tomorrow is scrub the house day. Ain't we got fun!